The present invention relates generally to fasteners of the type that are commonly used to attach tags to articles of commerce and more particularly to loop fasteners of the aforementioned type.
Fasteners of the type commonly used to attach tags to articles of commerce are well-known and widely used. Typically, such fasteners are unitary structures made of molded plastic. One of the earlier types of such fasteners, which is still in widespread use today, includes an elongated, flexible filament having a cross-bar disposed at a first end thereof and either a paddle or a second cross-bar disposed at the second end thereof. In use, the cross-bar disposed at the first end is typically inserted first through a tag and then through the desired article of commerce, with the paddle or second cross-bar not being inserted into the article and being used to retain the tag on the fastener. Typically, a plurality of the aforementioned fasteners are fabricated together, either as part of a fastener clip or as continuously-connected fastener stock. The clip-type arrangement is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,666, inventor Bone, which issued Sep. 17, 1963, and which is incorporated herein by reference. An example of continuously-connected fastener stock is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,121,487, inventor Bone, which issued Oct. 24, 1978, and which is incorporated herein by reference.
As can be seen in the aforementioned '666 patent, in a clip-type arrangement, the crossbars at the first ends of the respective fasteners are arranged parallel to one another, with each such cross-bar being connected to a common, perpendicularly-extending, runner bar by a corresponding severable connector. In addition, the paddles or cross-bars located at the second ends of the respective fasteners are also arranged parallel to one another. Such paddles or crossbars at the second ends may or may not be connected to one another by severable connectors.
Although, in theory, an individual fastener from the above-described clip could be attached to a desired article by manually detaching the cross-bar at the first end of the fastener from the runner bar and then manually inserting said cross-bar through the desired article, it should be appreciated that the manual insertion of said cross-bar through most articles is very difficult to achieve in practice. This is in part because, to insert the cross-bar through an article (and/or through a hole in a tag), one must first pivot the cross-bar about the first end of the filament so that the cross-bar is placed in a generally parallel orientation relative to the filament and then, while maintaining said generally parallel orientation, insert the cross-bar through the article. However, due to the relatively small size of the cross-bar and the somewhat limited flexibility of the filament at its juncture with the cross-bar, said pivoting action is difficult to perform manually. The manual insertion of a cross-bar through an article is also made difficult by the fact that the cross-bar does not easily penetrate certain types of materials of which the article may be made. Accordingly, for the foregoing and other reasons, fasteners of the type described above, as well as fasteners of the type that make up continuously-connected fastener stock, have typically been dispensed using appropriate fastener dispensing tools.
Examples of fastener dispensing tools adapted for dispensing fasteners from fastener clips of the type described above are disclosed in the following U.S. patents, all of which are incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,666, inventor Bone, which issued Sep. 17, 1963; U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,740, inventor Kunreuther, which issued Sep. 16, 1986; U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,555, inventor Jenkins, which issued Aug. 9, 1977; U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,362, inventor Strausburg, which issued Nov. 17, 1987; U.S. Pat. No. 4,125,215, inventor Jenkins, which issued Nov. 14, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,713, inventor Kunreuther, which issued Jun. 4, 1991; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,529,233, inventors Davignon et al., which issued Jun. 25, 1996.
Examples of fastener dispensing tools adapted for dispensing fasteners from continuously-connected fastener stock are disclosed in the following U.S. patents, all of which are incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. No. 4,121,487, inventor Bone, which issued Oct. 24, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 5,320,269, inventors Deschenes et al., which issued Jun. 14, 1994; U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,475, inventors McCarthy et al., which issued Sep. 11, 1990; U.S. Pat. No. 4,456,161, inventor Russell, which issued Jun. 26, 1984; U.S. Pat. No. 5,024,365, inventor Bourque, which issued Jun. 18, 1991; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,998,661, inventors Deschenes et al., which issued Mar. 12, 1991.
Whereas filamentary fasteners of the type described above having a cross-bar at a first end thereof and a paddle or a cross-bar at a second thereof are quite useful in attaching tags to many articles of commerce, such fasteners have limited tag-attaching utility for certain articles of commerce, such as sunglasses, which are not made of a material through which the cross-bar may be inserted and then retained thereagainst. For the foregoing reasons, as well as for other applications, various loop fasteners have been devised.
One type of loop fastener comprises a flexible filament having a longitudinally-extending plug at a first end thereof and a transversely-oriented socket at a second end thereof. (A related type of loop fastener includes a cross-bar instead of the aforementioned plug.) Typically, the socket is tubular in shape with opposing open ends and is provided with an apertured wall (or one or more flanges defining an opening of reduced size compared to the remainder of the socket interior) that divides the socket transversely into a pair of symmetric portions. Typically, the plug is in the form of a cone-shaped head and/or includes one or more spring tabs to enable the plug to be inserted through the apertured wall (or past the one or more flanges) from either end of the socket while, at the same time, keeping the plug from being easily withdrawn through the apertured wall after having been inserted therethrough. The spring tabs are typically arranged in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the socket. The aforementioned type of loop fastener often further includes a stop, the stop being sized so as not to be insertable through the apertured wall and being positioned at such a distance from the plug so as to prevent the plug, once inserted through the apertured wall of the socket, from being pulled through the opposite open end of the socket to a point where it is accessible for tampering. Accordingly, once the plug has been inserted through the apertured wall (or past the one or more flanges), the fastener locks itself into a loop of a substantially fixed size. For this reason, such loop fasteners are often referred to in the art as "self-lockable loop fasteners."
Self-lockable loop fasteners are to be contrasted with other types of loop fasteners, such as cinching loop fasteners or cable ties (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,333,822, inventors Benoit et al., which issued Aug. 2, 1994 and which is incorporated herein by reference) and shoe-lasting loop fasteners (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,438,724, inventor Merser, which issued Aug. 8, 1995; U.S. Pat. No. 5,586,353, inventor Merser, which issued Dec. 24, 1996; and PCT Appln. No. PCT/US96/19479, filed Jun. 12, 1997, all of which are incorporated herein by reference).
Examples of self-lockable loop fasteners include the Secur-a-tach.RTM. family of fasteners commercially available from Avery Dennison Corporation, Framingham, Mass. Self-lockable loop fasteners are also described in the following U.S. patents and patent applications, all of which are incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. No. 3,979,799, inventors Merser et al., which issued Sep. 14, 1976; U.S. Pat. No. 4,559,676, inventor Paradis, which issued Dec. 24, 1985; U.S. Pat. No. 4,183,567, inventor Bone, which issued Jan. 15, 1980; U.S. Design Pat. No. 266,484, inventor Bone, which issued Oct. 12, 1982; U.S. Design Pat. No. 262,436, inventor Bone, which issued Dec. 29, 1981; U.S. Pat. No. 4,245,374, inventor Suzuki, which issued Jan. 20, 1981; U.S. Pat. No. 4,240,183, inventors Sumimoto et al., which issued Dec. 23, 1980; commonly-assigned, presently pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/829,992, inventors Merser et al., filed Apr. 2, 1997; and commonly-assigned, presently pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/938,120, inventor Grendol, filed Sep. 26, 1997.
Self-lockable loop fasteners are typically mass-produced in assemblies of molded plastic, with each fastener of the assembly typically being attached by a severable connector to a common runner bar. Traditionally, to remove an individual self-lockable loop fastener from its assembly, the fastener is manually pulled away from the runner bar until the severable connector connecting the fastener to the runner bar breaks. Once separated from the remainder of the assembly, the plug end of the fastener is then manually inserted into its corresponding socket in the manner specified above.
Although the manual insertion of a plug into its corresponding socket is less difficult than the above-described manual insertion of a cross-bar through an article of commerce, it can readily be appreciated that such an activity, repeatedly performed for successive fasteners over extended periods of time, can be time-consuming, as well as physically and mentally taxing.
Accordingly, efforts have recently been expended in the development of tools that can be used both to detach individual self-lockable loop fasteners from fastener assemblies containing same and to insert the plug end of a fastener into its corresponding socket end. At the same time, efforts have also been expended in the development of improved self-lockable loop fasteners for use with such tools. Examples of the results of such efforts are disclosed in the following documents, all of which are incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. No. 5,501,002, inventor Fukami, which issued Mar. 26, 1996; U.S. Pat. No. 4,483,066, inventor Akira, which issued Nov. 20, 1984; U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,933, inventor Furutsu, which issued Aug. 27, 1985; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/649,373, inventors Hirai et al., filed May 17, 1996; PCT Application No. PCT/US97/17687, inventor Hirai, filed Sep. 30, 1997; and PCT Application No. PCT/US97/17688, inventors Fukami et al., filed Sep. 30, 1997.
Commercial embodiments of the fastener assembly (also referred to herein as a "fastener clip") and of the fastener attaching tool of PCT Application Nos. PCT/US97/17687 and PCT/US97/17688, respectively, have been marketed by J. E. Kabushiki Kaisha (Tokyo, Japan) under the trademarks PYLON loop pin and PYLON loop connector, respectively. Although the aforementioned fastener clip and fastener attaching tool have worked generally satisfactorily, the present inventors have observed certain shortcomings therewith. One such shortcoming is the frequent jamming of fasteners in the tool during the dispensing thereof. Another such shortcoming is the difficulty in retaining a tag on the needle of the tool as a fastener is dispensed by the tool through the tag.